Cruising with Jim - July 7-13 - Our 1st BIG Storm

Hot and No Wind

July 7

Our favorable wind forecast didn't really pan out as planned.  The north wind we expected to ride south to Cumberland Island never materialized.  Instead, we had about 2 knots of wind from the east ... not nearly enough to move our 21,000 lb boat!  And if that wasn't bad enough, there was a strong ocean swell from the east, which meant that as we motored the 10 hrs to Cumberland, we also were tossed back and forth, back and forth, back and forth on the swells.  Ye Gads ... what an unpleasant way to spend the day!  Dropping anchor in a deserted anchorage never felt so good!

It's bloody hot here, at least cooling down enough at night to get a decent night's sleep. 

July 8
The wind prediction for today was "calm and variable" so we decided to stay longer at Cumberland.  After a leisurely breakfast on the boat, we dropped the dinghy into the water and motored in, where we proceeded to spend the majority of the day in the ocean!  The water was about 84 degrees and absolutely the place to be as the temps climbed into the high 90s.

Late afternoon, we motored the boat over to St Mary's Marina (site of our imfamous breakdown) and anchored for the evening.  St Mary's is an incredibly friendly place and site of the famous Seagull's Saloon, where the star attraction is definitely the bartender, Cindy Dean, an ex-porno queen (really!).  She is, hands down, the most 'colorful' person we have ever met, and we figured that Jim needed to add her to his circle of acquaintances!  Good food, AC, tasty vodka tonics and baudy conversation -- great way to spend the evening!

July 9
We debated hanging around St Mary's longer because so many nice boaters cruised by to say HI and offer us a ride into town, but we decided to push on... this is supposed to a cruise after all!  Still no wind, so we motored over to Fernandina Beach (about an hour from StMarys). We were here in May for the annual Shrimp Festival. We are now in Florida, which I realize means we are heading in the wrong direction, but we figured we get started by showing Jim the places we are somewhat familiar with.  Fernandina has mooring balls to hook up the boat (great convenience at $15/day) and really nice bathrooms (even better convenience!).  Not much excitement in town ... we walked around, had dinner and returned to the boat and got things ready to leave in the morning.

The plan still is to head north towards the Chesapeake ... and hopefully we'll get moving soon since we've already burned 2-weeks of Jim's month-long vacation.  Watching the weather, hoping for a south wind.

July 10
A south wind of 5 knots was really not much help for us today.  We headed about 12 miles offshore in hopes of finding better wind, but no luck.  Trying to maintain a northerly route with a wind from the south is very difficult because the sails can't hold enough wind to stay steady.  It was a lot of work to keep the sails from flapping around, so we decided to change tacks and at least get some good sailing in.  We could either tack west (towards land and shallow water) or east (towards Spain), so we opted for Spain! We had a great sail for about 5 hours until we decided that we'd better get back on course b/c Spain really is not an option.  This meant turning on the motor and getting tossed around by the swells once more. 

Since we were making minimal headway and the storm clouds were beginning to gather, we decided to duck into St. Simons Island and anchor for the nite.  No sooner than getting the anchor down, the winds started to really blow, along with a ton of lightening and rain.  A TON of lightening!  Dan and Jim enjoyed the light show on deck, with cold beers, while I went below and got out the prayer beads!

July 11..."twas a hot and stormy day
Up early to begin our cruise again.  The weather forecast still wasn't favorable, and while we debated what we do next, we decided to call on one of our lifelines and got on the phone with Art and Mary Jane (veteran boaters from BLM who are currently in Washington DC).  Since our chartplotter is not working, we have no radar to accurately track where the storm systems are moving (just where are those scattered storms occuring anyway?).  Art was able to check the weather for us and recommened avoiding going offshore b/c there was a low system hanging over us, meaning that the winds would stay calm and the frequent afternoon storms would continue.  He advised us to take the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW) which would allow us to make better progress north, while finding safe anchorages at nite.  So off we went ... proving once again that changing plans is all part of cruising.  Thanks Art!

The ICW is an amazing thing.  You can cruise the east coast from FL to VA without ever touching the Atlantic.  The ICW is a series of dredged rivers that run along the coast, snaking through beautiful wetlands and marshes.  The cruising isn't as easy as sailing offshore (where we can frequently get the sails adjusted, turn on the auto pilot and read a book). You motor the ICW, keeping a careful watch on the charts, depth and GPS.  There were some anxious stretches where we were in 6ft of water (our draft is 5.5ft), but for most of the day, we puttered along in 20 ft of water, seeing lots of dolphins and few other boaters.  We had the sunshade up, so the heat wasn't too unbearable, and we were even able to hook up our small AC, taking advantage of the engine to charge our batteries.

Channel markers on the ICW

Crossing the Sapello Sound was big and beautiful, but it also gave us the chance to notice that wind had unexpectedly picked up from 5 knots to 15 knots, and the clear blue sky was quickly filling with solid cloud cover.  Just outside of the sound, we picked a place to anchor for the nite on the Wahoo River.  We dropped the sunshade and only had about 10 mintes left until our anchorage.

But 10 minutes was not enough.

The clouds turned from light grey to dark black in a matter of minutes, and then the RAIN and LIGHTENING and 50 knots of WIND arrived.  We had time to do virtually nothng to prepare for the storm. By the time we finished with all the OMG OMG OMG, we were complelely engulfed in the storm.  Very Loud and Very Wet!  The lightening and high winds were the most scary part ... but the lack of any visibility to where we were going was the most unsettling.  You couldn't even see the bow of the boat from the back cockpit because of the solid blowing rain. The screens that enclose our cockpit were completely sealed with water, and in a matter of minutes, we were all soaking wet.  After 5 minutes (which felt like an eternity) of being tossed around blindly in the storm, hoping that it would quickly blow over, Dan decided that we really couldn't ride it out, and we had to anchor. Yeah, right ... where in the hell is land anyway?  With absolutely no visibility, Dan managed to navigate the boat out of the sound to the mouth of the Wahoo River.  Then he did the unthinkable (at least as far as I was concerned), and he left the relative safety of the cockpit to go to the bow of the boat and drop the anchor. Fortunately, Jim had prepared the anchor to be deployed before all the shit hit the fan, so Dan was able to quickly go forward and get the anchor secure midst all the wind and lightening and blowing rain, while Jim navigated the boat by GPS (what a wonderful invention!).  I had no time to get the prayer beads out, so I basically sat in the rain, relaying messages from Dan to Jim. 

It took us about 10 minutes to get to anchor and another 45 minutes for the HEAVY rain and FREQUENT lightening to subside.  Jim thought it was all rather exciting; Dan felt it was a good exercise in heavy weather boating; and I thought it was something I never wanted to do again!  Needless to say, Jim has been a great addition to our crew!

The weather settled down after an hour, and we were able to raise the anchor and continue on to our intended anchorage up the Wahoo River.  After drying off, and taking a few shots of Pussers Rum, we were able to enjoy the cool weather that followed the storm. Barbequed porkchops and enjoyed a beautiful nite of a starry starry sky. The Milky Way never looked so good!

July 12.

Today was predicted to be a very stormy day, so we were up and on our way by 6:30 am.  We decided that we needed a break from 5 days at anchor, so we headed towards Isle of Hope Marina in Savannah, hoping to arrive safely before the afternoon storms picked up again. 

It was an easy day on the ICW.  Water levels were high after all the rain so we had no problems navigating the rivers.  Georgia has one-third of the marsh area in the US, even though they only have 100 miles of shoreline.  It was a very scenic day, not toooooo horribly hot, and with every turn in the river, we'd pick up a refreshing breeze.  

Approaching Savannah on the Skidaway Narrows brought us to the first fixed bridge that we had to request an opening.  Since they don't open the bridge during morning and evening rush hour, we were happy to make the crossing at about 1pm.

Nothing is better than approaching a dock and finding 2 dockhands to take our lines.

We arrived at the marina around 2pm, where we quickly decided to stay for 2 nites.  Showers, bathrooms, laundry, and a POOL were just too enticing to not linger and enjoy.  Plus, we wanted to watch the All Star Game on Tuesday, so staying put made sense. 

After enjoying the pool for the afternoon, we returned to the boat in time to batten down the hatches for the 5:30 thunderstorm ... so much more pleasant when tied securely to a dock!  The marina also has a loaner car that boaters can use, so we spent the evening driving around Savannah, restocking our food and liquor provisions....and a good night's sleep with no place to go tomorrow!

Next stop:  Beaufort, SC.  Leaving on July 14.

Better late than never - Leaving Brunswick Marina

July 6.
By now, we've learned that flexibility is a key ingredient to living on a sailboat.  If it's not weather, or boat parts, or boat projects, life still manages to put obstacles and detours in our way.

I would have bet money that we would not have been in BLM for 4th of July fireworks ... for the 2nd year in a row!  But, here we are ... it was a fabulous dock party with t-bone steaks cooked on a wood fire grill and an even better fireworks display.

Once again, our intentions were on track, and we went to the dock office on Tuesday, June 29 to settle our bill as planned.  Then, not planned, we learned a few hours later that Dan's mom was in the hospital in Florida.  There was a lot of uncertainity regarding her health which caused us a lot of uncertainity regarding our plans.  In the end, we decided that GA was a lot closer to Florida than any other place we were heading, so Dan rented a car and drove down to be with his mom.  Jim and I stayed on the boat, weathering the daily rain storms, getting the food shopping done, and enjoying life on a boat in the hot south with an air conditioner!

Dan returned on Friday, July 2, with good news about his mom's progress.  With his mind relieved and back focused on cruising, we decided to leave early Sunday morning and forego the holiday festivities in Brunswick.  Until we checked out our electronics and discovered that our chart plotter display was not working.  This marvel of electronics is both a crutch and a wonderful tool ... it tracks our progress on the water, allows us to program specific routes, and provides oodles of useful information when it comes to approaching shore and negotiating inlets.  Sure, lots of sailors before us cruised happily with their paper charts, but who wants to do that?!

Dan and Jim chillin' in the cabin.

So once again, we were practicing flexiblity and changing plans.  Unfortunately, the holiday came at an inconvenient time for us as we were not able to get ahold of Raymarine to send the chartplotter in for repair until Tuesday.  This gave us enough time to collect everyone else's opinions and research other GPS options we could use for a backup.  Back to West Marine to purchase a small unit that sits at our steering station, allowing us to do everything that our chartplotter did (except for the much smaller screen and we don't have radar to alert us to other boats or weather ... but who needs that, right?!  Fortunately, the weather has taken a delightful turn as both the temps and humidity dropped so low that we packed the AC away!

So, it's Tuesday ... the chartplotter got mailed today, the unit was installed, and once again we have settled our bill with the marina!  Tomorrow is the day ... July 7 ... we will toss of our dock lines and leave this marina we have called home for the last year.

Disassemble and mail in. Gotta love UPS!

Since the wind is predicted to be out of the north, we are going to sail with it and ride it south to Cumberland Island, which Jim has never seen.  After a day at Cumberland, we should have 3 days of south wind, 10 knots, which should make for good sailing off shore on our trek north.  Our goal is Georgetown SC which should take 2 days.  There we will either continue offshore to Southport, NC or take the ICW up to Southport.  We will then stay on the Intercoastal Waterway to avoid Cape Fear all the way to Norfolk, VA (to avoid Cape Hatteras) ... this leg of the trip should take about a week.

The Honda generator ... at home on our aft deck.

Finally, new stories are coming!

Back on the boat (again!)

June 26

Just about a month later, we are back on the water in Brunswick.  This time we arrived with our good friend, Jim Garfunkel, and a few "necessities" that we've learned will greatly improve the quality of life on the boat. 

Jim was a tad surprised that we managed to fill his car with stuff before leaving Minneapolis since we had told him that the boat was already packed to overflowing ... but that didn't prevent us from bringing Dan's guitar and my sewing machine. With 3 drivers, we opted to drive straight through to GA, something we haven't done in many years (for good reason!). We left MN around 11am and arrived in Savannah 24 hours later, in time to go to lunch with Craig and watch the US/Ghana World Cup soccer game in AC comfort at his place.

Addition #1:  Honda2000i generator.  Thanks to Tim Ryan, we encountered an offer too good to pass up!  Now we shouldn't have to be such "amp misers" when at anchor.

Addition #2:  Air conditioner.  I really thought we'd be able to do without one of these, but if you check the weather from Florida to Maryland, you'll understand the change in priorities!  Plus, now that we have a generator, we figured we needed something big to run. We spent one night on the boat in GA heat and humidity, then learned from a dockmate that we could get a small AC (5 amps) at Home Depot for $99, so off we went ... taking advantage of having Jim's car in Brunswick.

Considering that the heat index today is 110, and it feels like a blast furnace outside, we consider the AC unit to be a very good investment!  We don't even care that we're not sure where we are going to store it when it comes out of the companionway (which is how we enter and exit the boat).  Dan and Jim made a good team in constructing an easy way to insert the AC unit ... and still have room to climb over it when needed.  It's been a wonderful addition to our marine home!  We sleep better ... the refrig runs better ... and now there's a cool place to escape the GA heat and humidity.

Last item of business is food shopping, and then we'll be in good shape to shove off.  It looks like we'll have a decent weather window from Tues (6/29) to Thursday (7/1), so our fingers are crossed that we'll get to Southport or Wrightsville Beach in NC.  Our goal is to reach Washington DC before Jim has to return to MN (~July 26).

Time to say goodbye to our favorite dockmates, Chris and Karen, who are leaving their boat in BLM until September while they return to their home in Houston.  Not only fun to hang with during happy hour, they have been a great source of information as we plotted our course north.

Cruising plans are etched in jello

Friday, May 21.

One of the many valuable lessons we've learned during our first 6 months on Maja is that crusing requires flexibility.  Things seldom go as planned ... which is the main reason most people won't even talk about "plans".  When asked about their timeline for leaving the marina, most will simply say "soon" or "later".  It has proven true that the moment you announce "a plan", events inevitably transpire to change it.

Take us for example ... we started out with a plan to arrive in Georgia in early January (which we did), drop the boat in the water after a week of work in the boatyard, and head south.  In real life, the boat wasn't ready for splash down until mid-February, and the entire SE experienced the coldest winter in 150 years .. meaning that the major anchorages and marinas from Ft Lauderdale to Key West were full to brimming with boaters waiting for milder weather ... which never came so they continued to wait. Next, we announced plans to leave Brunswick the first of May and head north to the Chesapeake with several other cruisers, only to discover that our water heater needed to be replaced first. Another part to research, order, wait for delivery, and install.  So we decided to go to the shuttle launch while we waited. 

Today was definitely our "cast-off-lines" date.  We had a good two-day weather window to take us to Savannah.  We had reservations at the Isle of Hope marina in Savannah.  We had a refrigerator stuffed full of food, a freezer full of frozen meat/fish, and a shower overflowing with reserve containers of rice, peanut butter, tuna, crackers, hot sauce, refried beans, toilet paper, beer.  We had charts marked with our course from Brunswick to Wrightsville Beach, NC.  We went to the marina office to settle up our final bill and filled the tank with 50 gals of diesel. We even went so far as to share our plans with our dockmates at evening cocktail hour last nite.

Fatal flaw!

Our daughter called with a dilemna.  Her car was in Savannah, but she and Craig planned to drive his car back to MN the first of June.  Since she's looking for work in Minneapolis, she really needs to get her car back to MN.  Hmmmm, if only she knew someone who could drive it back for her .....  enter the retired parents who live on a sailboat .... don't we have the most flexibility of all???

Ye Gads!  Changing plans again?????  As the wise and lovely Sheila Yule told me: "Your new lifestyle is all about being flexible so that there's room for your 'full life' not just your 'boat life'..."  Indeed, Minnesota is part of our full life, and we really want to see our son, James, our nephew, Steven who's HS graduation party is May 29th, our god-daughter Collette who's HS grad party is June 12, and our many friend's who will be gathering in Webster WI over Memorial Day weekend for Jim Garfunkel's annual bocce tournament, swim party, campout, and all-around-good-time.

So, yes, once again we changed our plans, proving we can be flexible ...  (ignoring the mental sounds of loud gears grinding!).  As Sheila also said -- "you'll never know if this is a good idea or not until you've tried it!"  So, we are taking advantage of the opportunity to drive back to MN and return in 3 weeks with Craig...or stay longer and return with Jim Garfunkel.  The boat (and most of our provisions) will be here when we return.

Leaving Savannah .... last night with Michelle and Craig.

Wednesday, May 26.

6:00 am.

Up bright and early, leaving Savannah with Starbucks in hand for the first leg of our return to MN -- destination, Louisville KY ... to stay at Sheila's new condo (aka. our inland port!).

We love this place!  It's always hard to break away from Sheila's wonderful hospitality (I guess that's why we call her AWESOME!).

Saturday, May 29.

5:00 am.

Up early (and less bright) for the final leg of our journey ... KY to Rochester MN. Gotta arrive by 4pm to surprise my sister and family at nephew Steven's HS graduation party.

Beautiful day to drive thru the Smokey Mtns.

We zooooommmmmed through Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota to arrive at 3:30pm for Steven's grad party. Too bad I did not have camera in hand to capture my sister's face as we walked up her driveway to join the people gathered in the garage.  Priceless! Yeah ... the long drive was definitely worth the surprise!

Sunday, May 30.

8am.

Up bright and early again for the drive from Minneapolis to Webster WI -- site of Jim Garfunkel's annual Memorial Holiday Bocce Tournament and Campout.  We were lucky enough to catch our gang of best friends having breakfast at the 10th Hole (famous for it's eggs benedict and bloody marys), a holiday tradition.  They had just gotten their drinks when we entered -- and needless to say, we created a loud and tearful reunion!  The looks and reactions made the 2000 mile trip worthwhile ... (where was my camera????). 

Who could have asked for better weather over the holiday weekend?

The winners!  Marianne and Renee

It's GREAT to be back in Minnesota (and Wisconsin)!

The weather is GREAT!

Seeing old friends is GREAT!

We thoroughly enjoyed not having to partake in the ritual of leaving Webster, WI on Monday afternoon along with the rest of the holiday vacationers!  In fact, we so enjoyed relaxing by Jim's pool that we stayed an extra 2 days!  The weather is so fabulous compared to Georgia!

Sunday, June 6. Collette's HS Graduation

After leaving Webster, our next stop was the Devereaux's grest room, where they graciously provide us with a very comfortable bed and a place to store our dressers (not to mention their friendship and a delicious meal every day!).  Our goal was to work off our room and board by helping them get ready for Collette's grad party, but we quickly discovered that it's very hard to outwork DWD, or keep up with Renee in the kitchen! 

It's great to be back in Minneapolis!  We really love this city ... especially the beautiful West River Road neighborhood where the Devereaux's live.  We can walk to a theatre with $3/seats (which we did 3 times!), drive over to James' house whenever we want, and even the drive to Breezy Point Resort to see Michelle and Craig for a couple of days was a manaageable 3hr affair.  

Wednesday, July 15

Twins Game
Colorado Rockies vs. MN Twins

Ahh, yes, we couldn't leave the Minneapple without a visit to the famed Target Field ... the main attraction of summer 2010 in Mpls!  We could only get standing-room only tickets the day before the game, but it was still worth the trip.  Beer and brats and Twins win!

Knowland Family ... potential Christmas card material!

Craig and his dad, Dewey, joined us ..

and Renee...

We head to Rocheseter this week to surprise a few more friends at Mayo Clinic.  Dan went back to the Rehab Unit and I stopped in on co-workers from the Compliance Office.  This was a good time to visit with these folks again.   

Here's Karen again. She has a real office when she's not in a JAX bar!

We are fortunate to have in-land ports at all the important places we visit -- and in Rochester, we stay with my sister, Laury, and Bob, Marie and Steven.  We've learned that part of living on a boat (w/o a backup homestead) requires setting up a series of guest rooms along our way. Fortunately, we have Dan's skillful fix-it services to barter -- his motto is "I like to fix nusance problems around the house so I don't become one ...".  We also figure if we keep moving every few days, we'll be able to come back again!

We will head back to Georgia with Jim Garfunkel sometime between June 21 and 26th ....

This side trip from our "big adventure" has been a lot of fun ... and kinda weird at the same time.  On one hand, living in a house has so many great conveniences, and so much space (cooking is definitely a lot more fun and flush toilets are a truly marvelous invention!).  But, it also feels strange in be indoors so much of the time, and not to be reading guide books and studying navigation charts to plot a future course for our travels.  We've been prepping to leave Brunswick Marina for so long that it feels weird to be taking this prolonged timeout ... it's a difficult balance, feeling like we should get back to the boat and get moving, and yet wanting to take advantage of our time in MN.  Nothing beats family and friends, and it was good decision to take this rather spontaneous diversion.